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Tetra Pak Philippines and Alaska Milk Corporation Team Up To Promote Nutrition and Environment Awareness in Tacloban

2016-03-28

Tacloban City, Leyte, Philippines

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Tetra Pak Philippines and Alaska Milk Corporation Team Up To Promote Nutrition and ​Environment Awareness in Tacloban​

With the aim of creating awareness among parents and teachers on the importance of good nutrition and environment care, partners Alaska Milk Corporation and Tetra Pak Philippines in cooperation with the Department of Education – Tacloban Chapter organized a Nutrition & Eco-Caravan Day for two of its School Milk Project beneficiary schools in Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines.The caravan is an off-shoot activity from Alaska and Tetra Pak’s Tacloban School Milk Project which was launched in June 2015.

​Tacloban School Milk Project

Tetra Pak Philippines and Alaska Milk Corporation together with the Department of Education – Tacloban Chapter initiated the Tacloban School Milk Project with the aim of improving the nutritional status of school children in Tacloban City, Leyte, Philippines. Two (2) public schools in Tacloban namely: (1) Don Vicente Quintero Memorial School and (2) Anibong Elementary School, have been selected to be the recipient of this 180-day school milk feeding program which covers children from kindergarten to 3rd grade for the school years 2015 – 2017. Both schools sustained significant damage during the onslaught of Super Typhoon Yolanda (International name: Typhoon Haiyan) in 2013. ​

Under this school feeding programme, students are provided milk during school days in order for them to develop their milk drinking habits and enjoy the benefits of milk for the body. The students’ weight and height are then monitored on a quarterly basis to measure the impact on their health. School attendance, performance in class and other indicators are monitored as well. ​

As part of Tetra Pak’s commitment to protect the environment, the empty school milk cartons will be collected for recycling. Tetra Pak has garnered support from other companies who will transport the empty milk cartons from Tacloban to a paper mill facility in Bulacan which will handle the recycling of empty packages into recycled paper to be used for notebook production.

Nutrition & Eco-Caravan

Focusing on the importance of education when it comes to addressing issues on health and nutrition gave way for the Nutrition & Eco-Caravan Day which was attended by parents of students from Don Vicente Quintero Memorial School and Anibong Elementary School. The activity further reinforces the School Milk Project’s objective of curbing malnutrition among school children by promoting proper nutrition habits not only among students but to their parents and teachers as well. In collaboration with the Department of Education-Tacloban Chapter, Alaska invited a local nutritionist based in Leyte to talk ​to parents in the local dialect about providing essential nutrients to their children.

Tetra Pak also held an environment talk and a recycling crafts workshop during the caravan where parents learned about the “3Fs”, which stands for Flip, Flap, Flatten. The process starts with removing the drinking straw from the carton; flipping open the top side flaps of the carton; flipping open the bottom flap; then flattening the carton before putting it in a recycling bin. With this process, space is saved during storage therefore making it easier for empty cartons to be transported for recycling.

Delivering Nutrition Directly to the Classroom

Even before the launch of Tacloban School Milk Project in 2015, Alaska and Tetra Pak have advocated the value of school milk programmes. Since 1994, Alaska has conducted school milk programmes covering different schools in the Philippines while Tetra Pak has been supporting governments and dairy processors in developing school feeding programmes around the world since 1962.

Both companies support school milk programmes in delivering nutrition directly to the classroom thereby improving children’s health and boosting their capacity to learn.